Spirits at War Excerpt

Journey Home
1866

Outside the window, dawn's silvery light wraps up a discard from last night's brawl; the war might be over but the fighting goes on. Young boys on their way to toil in basement factories throw rocks at the windows of the abandoned four-story warehouse across the alley from me. Well beyond the margins of our lives, copper rooftops house the more fortunate inhabitants of Boston. Last night's wind is dead, not even a furtive breeze. Makes me think of my father's old saying, "a falling leaf is a whisper to the living." I turn away from the only window in my two-room tenement. Neither trees nor spirits long survive here.

"We'll be on this evening's train," I say to the waiting messenger. I knew Bobby would call for me before the end. He and I were born on the same estate, the same day 72 years ago, but to different parents and vastly different stations in life. Time is running out. The room moans. I am surprised to find the sound comes from me.

I start to pack for our journey, finally able to make things right with my daughter and my granddaughter, for Kate and Tory are coming. Kate will be miserable and make me pay every mile of the journey, but she will come with me, I am sure of it. They both need to know how things were at Morven in the days when the spirit world was more real than life itself. When my name was Mara, not Grandmamma. In the days before railroads and canals. When the seasons were counted through the cycles of the apple orchards. Kate thinks life is hard now; she has to be shown how far we have come.

I am intent on them learning everything. They will know just what to do with the past, even the parts that have been buried like a corpse. The doing, however, is bigger than I can manage alone. Kate's anger about the past has oozed and bled for too long. Her insides are a festering mess. There are those in Princeton who will know just what to do to help.

A thin line of moisture gathers on my forehead, like thunderclouds on the horizon, a warning.